


The Difficult Part

by amyfortuna



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-08-22
Updated: 2010-08-22
Packaged: 2017-10-11 04:56:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,462
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/108659
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amyfortuna/pseuds/amyfortuna
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the events at the pool, John tries to put his life back together.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Difficult Part

The last thing he could remember was exchanging a look, a brief nod, with Sherlock, understanding what was about to happen. Then Sherlock pointed the gun at the bomb and the world went white.

He was conscious that he was in a hospital bed even before he opened his eyes, hearing an incessant soft beeping and the rush of many feet and muffled voices a few metres away. Someone was standing quite close to him, making every effort to be silent and still, but still there.

John wrenched open his eyes like it was the hardest thing he'd ever had to do. Every part of his body hurt, and his ears rang with a sickening faint memory of an explosion. He looked up to see Mycroft looking down at him, an unreadable expression on his face, carefully neutral.

"Hello, John," he said. "Don't speak." He held up a hand. "You're not ready for that yet." He looked into John's eyes, and the unreadable expression wavered, fading into a subtle shade of grief and sympathy. "You're not ready for this, yet, either, but I thought it was best you knew." Mycroft swallowed, and looked away. "Sherlock is dead."

It was as though John split in two at that, part of him, detached, coolly reacting without surprise or grief. They knew what could happen, and they had both agreed to it in that quick exchange of nods. But another part of him was howling inside, an unreasoned, unreasonable grief that could not be contained. He wanted to scream, but all he could hear was the faint catch of his own breathing and an involuntary gasp that burned his throat. Tears started to his eyes, and he shut them, to shut out Mycroft, the hospital, and a world where Sherlock was dead.

Mycroft's hand slid over his own in what was clearly meant to be a comforting gesture, and John opened his eyes. "You loved him so much," Mycroft said, his face back to neutral, the perfect diplomat once again. "My brother was such an idiot." He let go of John's hand, and abruptly turned to go out, a quiet beep from his mobile phone sounding just as he walked out the door.

John's eyes slid shut again, and the tears came back, this time to slide down his face unchecked, until he drifted off into an uneasy sleep.

\---

As John recovered, Mycroft came back to visit about twice a week. On his third visit, Mycroft had taken a chair next to John's bed, and simply sat, watching him sleep, until John woke up. John was getting his voice back now (having suffered smoke inhalation) but was still on very strong painkillers. Other than burns over a large part of his body, John also had a broken leg and a fractured wrist. Considering the size of the explosion and his proximity to it, he'd been very lucky to survive, however, as Lestrade told him a few days after he woke up.

Lestrade hadn't said anything about Moriarty, though, and John wanted to know if that bastard had survived. So he asked Mycroft, who raised a questioning eyebrow, and explained that someone answering to Jim Moriarty's description had been found near the rubble of the ruined swimming pool. After careful further questioning, John managed to make out that Moriarty hadn't been killed in the explosion, just badly hurt, and that it was in fact Mycroft who had put a bullet through his head.

Well, Mycroft didn't exactly say that, but John recalled Sherlock's words - "you know my methods, so apply them" - and reasoned it out. Mycroft's careful, delicate pauses, what was unsaid more than what was said, gave the story away.

Three weeks went by. Sherlock's memorial service was held, but John was still in hospital and couldn't attend, relying on descriptions of it from Mrs Hudson and Lestrade - Mycroft wouldn't discuss it. On the day that John was released from hospital, Mycroft came to see him.

"I shall have to insist that you keep the flat at Baker Street," Mycroft said without preamble, leaning against the doorway to his room. John looked up from where he sat on the bed, about to protest, but Mycroft held up a hand. "Now, don't fuss. I have reached an understanding with your Mrs Hudson that I shall pay the full rent on the flat for sometime to come. I know what you are about to say, but give me a moment to explain." He walked into the room, and took a seat in the chair next to the bed.

"I always knew Sherlock's life was a dangerous one and that there was every possibility that he might drag others into danger with him. He undoubtedly did so with you. Some few years ago, I took out a very special life insurance policy on my brother. It was a difficult and delicate matter to arrange, but the money from this is intended for you, ultimately."

"I don't understand, why me?" John said. "Why not you, as next of kin?"

"Technically, it does still belong to me," Mycroft said. "But I am choosing to use it to pay the rent on the Baker Street flat for now, and I would be grateful if you could see fit to remain there."

"I have nowhere else to go," John said. And that settled matters.

\---

The flat looked exactly the same as it had the last time John saw it, just as he departed for Sarah's before being kidnapped. He could almost see Sherlock sitting on the large chair, hands steepled, just as he had been when they parted. Sherlock's laptop was lying on the seat of the chair, and slowly John moved to pick it up and to sit down where it had been.

Disconnecting the laptop from its power cord, John opened it. A password screen came up, and John paused. What would it be?

He took a breath and then suddenly knew the answer as if all the logical steps in-between had been followed too quickly for conscious thought. Making a note to himself to work out how he'd made that intuitive leap so that he could do it again, he typed in 'Rachel' and the laptop beeped. A video appeared on the screen and John pressed play, heart giving one massive thump of worry and hope. Sherlock's face appeared on the screen.

"Hi, John," he said. He was dressed much the same as he had been at the pool. It was clearly late in the evening and Sherlock was about to go and meet John, Moriarty, and his fate. He was still knotting his tie, and for a second John was distracted by the sight of his fingers moving with balanced precision at his neck.

"I'm about to meet Moriarty," Sherlock continued. "But I wanted to leave a message for you, in case things don't go well. I'm just saying that..." He paused, looking down for a second, then went on. "I don't know if I'll be coming back. You should know I consider it to be worth it, though. In any case, I'm glad you're out of danger. Please stay that way." A small smile crossed his face, an expression John had never quite seen before. If it were on any other face, it would have been deemed affection. "I'm sorry," he went on. "About the milk. And the beans. Can't get them after all. Getting Moriarty instead. Hope you don't mind."

He flashed a quick grin and the video ended. John sat frozen in his chair, helpless with the desire to both laugh and cry.

\---

John never could bring himself to change much if anything about the flat. The bullet holes and smiley face on the wall stayed, and the skull kept its place of honour on the mantelpiece. Sometimes John talked to it, crazy as that sounded. "Alas, poor Sherlock. I knew him well," he once caught himself saying and couldn't help but laugh at the incongruity and the sheer dreadfulness of the ancient Shakespeare joke.

On the other hand, he did ensure that the fridge was clean and held only groceries, and that the kitchen in general was kept in good order. No eyes in the microwave with John, he'd think to himself, and desperately, achingly, miss Sherlock. He often thought he'd take the eyes and the head and whatever else that mind of Sherlock's could come up with to plague him, if he could only have him back.

A year after the explosion, fully healed, he went back to work as a locum, but not to Sarah's surgery. He and Sarah had parted ways shortly after his return home from the hospital - she couldn't bring herself to break it off beforehand. There would never be a 'next time' much less a 'time after that'. John was surprised to find that he didn't feel any pain over this and reflected that when his heart was already grieving and broken, it really couldn't break any more.

Two years afterward, he chased down a criminal and saved a young girl's life. Back home, after all the fuss and police paperwork was done, he found himself feeling for a moment what he never thought he would again. Happy. But once the excitement faded, so did the happiness and it was back to the daily routine all too soon.

It was a Saturday evening in March of the year following, and John needed to go to the store. It had been a busy week at the surgery, more patients than usual coming in due to a late winter round of the flu virus. He'd stayed late most evenings that week and as a consequence had spent most of Saturday either sleeping or watching TV on the sofa.

The nearby small Tesco's was nearly empty, as it was about closing time. John stood in front of the pasta shelf, mentally debating the merits of penne versus rigatoni, when a man in a high-vis jacket pushed past him. "Sorry," John said reflexively, not really looking up.

He finished up his shopping and went to the checkout, but when he felt in his pocket for his debit card, it was missing. Discouraged, he left the shopping basket and stepped out of the store. Was he sure he had picked up the card from the mantel when he left? He decided to go home and check, berating himself for an idiot.

The card wasn't on the mantel. Nor on the kitchen table, or in any pocket of his coats. He was just coming to the conclusion that it had been stolen when the door downstairs buzzed and a few moments later there was a quick knock on his door.

"Sorry, have you lost your bank card?" John looked up startled. A man in a high-vis jacket stood in the doorway. He was tall and wrinkled with gray hair, and spoke in a quick, rough sort of way with a vaguely Scottish-sounding accent. "I found this on the ground outside the Tesco's and you were looking about like you'd lost something. I happened to see you go in this door, and figured if it were yours, no harm done giving it to you. Your name John Watson?"

"Yes, that's me," John said, and reached his hand out to take the card. When he looked back up at the man's face, it had completely changed. The wrinkles and the gray hair were gone and Sherlock Holmes stood there smiling before him.

"Wha..." John felt himself say and then everything went suddenly gray and he felt himself falling.

When he came back to himself, he was lying on the sofa and Sherlock was bent over him, high-vis jacket and gray wig on the floor next to him. He could still feel a lingering pressure on his lips and wondered faintly if Sherlock had decided to take fairy tales literally and kiss him back to life. Sherlock's hand was against his face and he was all apologies. "John, I'm so sorry, I really am. I had no idea you'd react like that."

"I think we've sufficiently managed to surprise each other, then," John said, unable to suppress a smile even as tears were coming into his eyes and sliding down his face, unnoticed, unchecked. "I'm so happy you're alive but how, how?"

Sherlock's hand gently slid down John's face. "I've given you a bit of a shock. Are you sure you're okay?" Almost as though he couldn't help himself, Sherlock picked John's hand up and held it tightly clasped in both of his own.

"Better than fine, now that you're here," John said, and suddenly the distance between their lips was too great and John found himself leaning up even as Sherlock leaned down. Their lips met, Sherlock releasing John's hand in favour of putting both arms around him. They kissed like they had been preparing for nothing else for the last three years and like they wanted to do nothing else for the next three. John could taste tears and sweetness on Sherlock's lips and when he finally tore himself away, it was only to put both arms around his neck and hug him close.

"I wasn't going to stop at all," Sherlock said at last. "I'd put you in far too much danger already." He drew back from John a little, but kept his arms around him. "I've rather ruined my plans, but when I saw you, knew you were still here, I couldn't resist you."

"I'm glad you did," John said softly. "I'd rather have you and danger than live the rest of my life in boring safety."

Sherlock smiled, a painful, bittersweet smile. "I know," he said. "And that's the difficult part. See, if you care about someone, you want them to be safe. But if you're me, then they're in danger when they're with you. And so you want them to be away from you." He looked into John's eyes. "But then why does it make me so happy to hear you say you want me? It's likely to get you killed one day."

John raised a hand and let it trail down Sherlock's face. "You're over-thinking it. It's my choice to make, and even if being with you does lead to a death I wouldn't have had otherwise, I'd still rather spend the time with you. After all, death comes for us all in the end, but we need to make the most of the life we have, and for me, that's with you."

Sherlock smiled and kissed him again, quickly. "Well, then, what are we waiting for?" he said. "Danger awaits, John." He stood up, holding out a hand for John, who took it and stood with him. "Let's go!"


End file.
